


Ten In A Bundle

by dragonsoftheeast



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsoftheeast/pseuds/dragonsoftheeast
Summary: Colleen and Davos have lived all of their short years in the Heavenly City of Kun-Lun, training in kung-fu. Like most small-town kids, they've never seen the outside world, and never met anyone that hasn't known them since they were born.Enter Danny Rand. Crashed, stranded, and orphaned, he's just trying to find a place in this world.Lei-Kung tries. He really does.





	Ten In A Bundle

_Something wet was running down his face-_

_We’ve got you, Danny!-_

_His mother was flying through the air-_

_His father was crying, he had never seen him cry before-_

_I love you-_

_It was so cold-_

_The wind was howling in his ears- he could almost hear his mother in its screams-_

“Are you the _gwai lou_?”

Danny woke with a start, scrambling off his filthy pallet, his back scraping against the chamber pot in the corner of his tiny room, threadbare blanket tangling around his legs. He hastily wiped tears off his face.

“Who- who’s there?”

Through the curtain that covered the entrance to the room, he could see the light of a tiny lamp, forming a the small female shadow. The girl pushed back the cloth, revealing a pair of wide dark eyes set in a small round face, a bruise forming under her right jaw.

“My name’s Colleen. I heard that Chodak and Tashi found a _gwai lou_ outside the gate. Is that you?” She spoke in a lilt, from her youth or her accent.

“I’m Danny,” he said, reaching up instinctively to push his hair back. He’d forgotten that the monks had shaved it. With everything that had happened, the loss of his hair hadn’t really registered. “I- I- was in a plane crash,” he offered. “I don’t know what a _gwai lou_ means.”

She looked at him nervously, biting her lip. “You don’t look like a ghost.”

“Is that what that means?”

She nodded. “Are you?”

“I- I don’t feel like one.” He felt his body over the loose robes that the monks had given him.

“Then you must not be one,” she said cheerfully. “I'm glad. I don't think I could be friends with a ghost."

“Do you have many friends?” He asked.

“There aren’t that many other kids here,” she said. “There’s Davos. He trains with me. He’s older though.”

“I have friends, back home,” he said. “Joy and Ward Meachum. Ward is kind of mean, though.”

“Meachum.” Colleen tested the name on her tongue. “Why are you friends with Ward if he’s mean?”

He shrugged. So did she.

“I guess things are different outside.” She said, dismissing the strangeness with the fickleness of a child.

“You’ve never been outside the gate?” He asked, astonished. Before, his parents had taken him all over.

“Dad sometimes lets me go to the village,” she said brightly.

“Not even just to look?”

Blankly, she stared back at him.

“Oh,” he said, hugging his knees to his chest. “I was hoping- you know- that I could go and look for my mom.”

Her face fell, but brightened again. “I could talk to my dad! He’s important to the elders. Maybe he can let you go and find your mom.”

“You think so?”

She nodded.

“Okay.” He smiled, filled with new hope. “Thanks.”

She shook her head. “No problem. I think it would be cool to go outside the gate. What’s it like?”

He shrugged. “Loud, I guess. I never really noticed until I was here.”

“Oh.” Her lips quirked downwards.

“There’s big buildings and lots of lights,” he said, suddenly loath to disappoint. “And I get to go around the my dad's building all by myself. What do you do here?”

“We train to fight!” She said, demonstrating with a flurry of punches. “I like swords best, though.”

“Whoa,” Danny said, wide-eyed. That sounded infinitely cooler than his building. “Do you get to hold them?”

“Of course I do.” She puffed up with pride. “I can use them too. My sifu is Lei-Kung the Thunderer.”

“That’s amazing!” Danny didn’t know who that was, but ‘the Thunderer’ sounded very impressive.

Colleen’s cheeks colored. “I’m going to be the champion,” she declared, fist clenched. “I’ll be the best sword fighter in the world!”

Danny could only nod in awe.

* * *

 

When the monks came to summon the outsider in the morning, they found Lee Wing’s daughter slumped against him, both snoring profusely.

“Colleen,” the acolyte said, sharply enough that both children jerked awake. Colleen scrambled to her feet, slapping her fist and palm together in a haphazard bow. “Return to your training. Your father has urgent matters to take care of today.”

She scampered away, bare feet slapping against the dirt.

Danny's lip was already trembling at the confrontation. He wished Colleen was with him. This place felt safe, but he was an outsider. That had been made abundantly clear. What would they decide to do with him?

“Come with me, child,” the acolyte said, his arms hidden inside the wide sleeves of his robes. Danny wondered if that helped to keep his hands warmer. The acolyte stared at him blankly, much like Colleen had the night before. It looked much less endearing now. More like an expectation than genuine confusion.

He pushed himself to his feet, tucking his hands into the opposite sleeves. Perhaps that would make him look more well-behaved, and then they would like him better. And then they would let him stay here.

The dirt under his bare feet was so cold he thought it might freeze him in place. He certainly was frozen- his knees had locked, and the acolyte had unveiled his hands to sort of nudge him forward by the elbows.

 _You have to look good for them_. Danny focused on keeping his head up and his back straight. It was like filming a commercial. Except instead of selling Dad’s products, it was himself.

“Wash yourself,” the acolyte said, pointing to a basin.

Not wishing to seem disobedient, Danny dipped his hands into the basin- the water was clean, but cold- and scrubbed furiously at his face and hands. It was a far cry from the hot showers at home. At least he was clean, if red-faced.

The acolyte watched silently until he had dried his hands on his robe and rejoined him.

He imitated the acolyte as best he could when he walked into the chamber. Seven monks, each with a short beard and a moustache, sat cross-legged on a half-circle of cushions, staring with austere blankness at the outsider child that entered the room.

Shakily, Danny bowed, the way he had seen the other monks do.

“Is this the child that you found?” The monk in the center asked, not even looking at him.

“Yes.” A monk stepped forward. “I found him with three others. They were dead.”

_Snow scraping against his face-_

_Blood covering his back-_

_The pilots, black marks running up their necks-_

_His father, lying so still, but maybe, maybe-_

In the wide sleeves of his robes, his hands clutched at his arms, his fingernails digging into his skin. The monks kept talking, heedless of his panic- he couldn’t keep track of what they were saying anymore.

“How did they come here?” the one third from the right said.

“They came over by plane.”

“Did they know where we were?”

“It was an accident, I doubt they were looking for us.”

“We have nothing to fear,” the monk furthest to the left said soothingly. “The gate is closed; it will not open for another fifteen years. No one can enter.”

His stomach dropped. If no one could enter, then no one could leave. He couldn’t go and find his mother. He could never go home.

"Then what can we do with him?" The one on the right asked.

"I can take him in," the one next to him, bespectacled and kindly-looking, volunteered.

"Th-" Danny started, feeling a rush of relief.

"That will not be necessary, Lee Wing," The monk in the center said, getting up in one smooth motion. “I will take him as my student.”

The monks’ eyebrows lifted as one, which told him that this man did not have many students.

“Lei-Kung, are you sure?” Lee Wing asked, managing to convey multitudes of disbelief with a tilted head. Danny let out a tiny gasp. _This_ was Collen's sifu?

“So you would not trust me to handle this child?” Lei-Kung asked, the tone of someone who did not expect defiance but was utterly prepared for confrontation. “Even as you entrusted your own daughter to my tutelage?”

Danny very much did not want to be there. Though the conversation was about him, it did not seem to _really_ be about him, and he had been fighting off the urge to scratch his nose.

After a moment of deliberation, Lee Wing said stonily. "Of course. The child will become your student."

"Come with me, child," Lei-Kung said, turning away and leaving.

Danny hurried forward. As he passed the line of still-stunned monks, he stumbled, tripping over the hem of his robe on the uneven ground. Red-faced and against his better instincts, he looked back. Lee Wing gave him an encouraging nod, his glasses glinting and month curving in the largest hint of a smile he had seen since he had crashed.

* * *

 “Father,” Colleen said, approaching with her head lowered. There was a practice sword hanging on her hip- Lei-Kung had said she needed to get used to the weight- and there was a fresh bruise forming under her jaw that was throbbing with every pulse.

“Colleen,” Lee Wing said, taking her aside, out of the sight of the other monks. “How has your training been progressing?”

She grinned, lifting her chin, even though that made her jaw ache. “Amazing, Dad!”

Her arms reached as far up as she could go to hug him. His hand lowered to touch her jaw, brushing her bruise. “What happened here?”

“Davos got me,” she said. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt much.”

That was a lie. But she had learn to deal with pain, otherwise she would never become a great warrior. And then all her training would be for nothing.

Dad frowned and brushed her hair back behind her ear. “Get him back, okay?”

She nodded, before remembering. “There’s a boy named Danny. He wants to find his mom. He thinks she might be outside the gate. Do you think you can get the Council to let him go and look?”

His face fell. Colleen knew the expression as her father bracing himself to disappoint her.

“Why not?” She asked.

He crouched down so that he was looking up at her.

“The gate is closed,” He said bluntly. Her father never lied to her. “We can’t leave.”

“Then what’s going to happen to Danny?” She asked, despite her disappointment on his behalf. “Is he going to be alright?”

“Lei-Kung has taken him as his student.” Her father sent her a knowing look. “He’ll be training to be the Iron Fist, like all the other boys.”

Her eyes widened. “He’ll be training with me?”

“Yes.” He brushed her hair back again. “Try not to beat him up too much, Colleen. He doesn’t have your training.”

Despite herself, she was a little excited. Not because Danny wasn’t leave, obviously, but that he had been allowed to stay. He was a nice boy who hadn’t known her since she was born. He could tell her about the outside world.

Plus, she would have a training partner who couldn’t beat her up all the time. She would be the better fighter of the two, and that was a tiny bit exciting.

“Now, run along,” her father said, placing a gentle hand on her back. “Lei-Kung will be expecting you.”

* * *

 

“Where were you?” Davos asked, pouring more wine into his buckets.

“My father asked me to see him,” she lied smoothly, scooping up her own buckets. She patently avoided Davos’ accusing eyes as she poured wine into the buckets as fast as she could without splashing.

“What about?”

“Sifu has chosen to take another student,” she informed him, setting her first bucket down.

“Who?” Davos asked, suddenly stilling.

“Danny.” She took pleasure in knowing something the older boy did not.

“I’ve never heard of him,” he said, clearly enunciating the meaning- _I know everyone here._

Lei-Kung swept silently beside them, Danny shuffling gracelessly behind him.

“Sifu,” the two children said in unison, bowing swiftly.

“This is Daniel Rand,” the venerable master said. “Show him how to behave.” Then he swept away again, ascending the stone stairs that led up to the main training halls.

Danny’s mouth gaped, and he pulled his arms from his sleeves. “Um- so, what are we supposed to do?”

“Fill those buckets with wine,” Colleen said, pointing.

“Are we- are we supposed to drink it?” He asked, bewildered.

“No!” Colleen said, laughing. That would be ludicrous. What was the point of training while drunk?

“We’re carrying them up to sifu,” Davos intoned.

“Why?” It was an innocent enough question.

“Discipline,” Davos said, shoving the buckets into the other boy’s chest, leaving purple specks on his robe.

“That counts as spilling,” Colleen pointed out, the best defense she could muster. And Davos was right. To train successfully, they had to trust their master’s judgement. She set down her second bucket and held out the ladle to him.

Danny looked at it apprehensively before grabbing it and pouring.

At this point, the wine had become routine. So for Colleen, watching Danny’s confused look even as he continued to fill his two buckets, attached them to the yoke, and slung it over his shoulders. He groaned at the weight.

“You’ll get used to it,” Colleen assured him.

It took him about five minutes to start complaining.

“You’ll get used to it,” She told him, going back down a few steps so that they were side by side. Davos, fifty steps ahead of them, sighed and continued to climb.

Normally, it took them about an hour to get up the mountain. With their new charge, it took twice the time, and even now, after years of this, waiting for him was tiresome. The yoke was chafing against her neck. She and Davos had gone back for him more than a few times.

“My head is cold,” Danny complained, standing still and rubbing at his shaved head.

“If you walk faster, then the blood flow will heat you up,” Davos said without looking back. Colleen, thankful for her long hair, didn’t feel that it was her place to comment.

“That’s not how it works,” Danny replied. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

“Hey,” she whispered, low enough that Davos couldn’t hear her. “Don’t let them see you cry, okay? Especially not Lei-Kung.”

He nodded, sniffling softly.

“I promise it’ll get better,” she said. “I cried the first time too.”

“I’ll get used to it,” Danny said.

She smiled. “Exactly. We’re almost there.”

“I’ll get used to it,” Danny repeated to himself under his breath, steeling himself. “I’ll get used to it.” He bounced on his toes, wine sloshing in the buckets. And then he began to climb again.

When they reached the summit, Lei-Kung was waiting for them, watching them steadily as they poured their wine into cups for the elder monks.

Davos’ face set into stone as his father clucked his tongue and set the children into horse stances for the morning. Colleen set her practice sword aside and pulled her fists to her hips, keeping her back straight and looking straight ahead.

“You must be rooted in the earth,” he said, correcting Danny’s form with a _whap_ from the cane. “That is the beginning of every warrior.”

The boy could not stop himself from releasing a gasp as he fell to the ground, but to his credit, he did not begin to weep. He got to his feet again, pulling into the stance.

Colleen winced in sympathy. The beginning was always the worst part.


End file.
